Is there life "out there"?

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Ricardodaforce

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Extraterrestrials! ETs! Aliens! The Greys!

So, what do you think? Is the universe teeming with life (intelligent or not) or are we alone?

As Carl Sagan said, if we are alone, it's a very big waste of space.
 
"There's life out there, Jim, but not as we know it".

I, too, believe there is life somewhere out there. I also think it would be quite naive of us to think that we are the only . . . er . . . "intelligent" (for want of a better word - watch an episode of "You've Been Framed" and you get the idea) life there is in this universe.
However, owning to the nature of physics and the way light and time interacts with each other, it would be impossible to establish contact with any kind of alien life form that may be sitting out there. For a start, it takes light from the nearest star several decades, if not, centuries, to reach here.
 
Ian D J said:
However, owning to the nature of physics and the way light and time interacts with each other, it would be impossible to establish contact with any kind of alien life form that may be sitting out there. For a start, it takes light from the nearest star several decades, if not, centuries, to reach here.
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That might be impossible for us, but not necessarily for "them" :)
 
antihero said:
That might be impossible for us, but not necessarily for "them" :)
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That is very true. Right now they could be watching us but not ready to make the first contact because we're such a violent and simple race. ;) :shrug: :help:
 
Just playing the odds game with the numbers - there has to be. Intelligent? Again looking at the numbers 'more than likely'
I'm not into sci fi, and i doubt we (or them) will ever make contact. Light being the fastest thing in the universe (think this will stay as fact forever) and all that and a constant 'they' need to work with as well, i doubt contact is ever going to be possible. Just imo...
 
The theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss said "the universe is massive, and rare things happen all the time-including life".

That sums it up for me.
 
SnappyHappy said:
Light being the fastest thing in the universe (think this will stay as fact forever) and all that and a constant 'they' need to work with as well, i doubt contact is ever going to be possible. Just imo...
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I'm not so sure.....we know that the universe is expanding at faster than light speed, so what other mechanisms or phenomena have we yet to discover?
 
Erm light from the nearest star takes about 8 minutes to reach us. Not 4.2 years.

As to et life. There must be given the billions of stars. Probability is very likely.
 
Lynton said:
Erm light from the nearest star takes about 8 minutes to reach us. Not 4.2 years.

As to et life. There must be given the billions of stars. Probability is very likely.
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I think it was obvious we were talking about outside the solar system.
 
Ricardodaforce said:
I think it was obvious we were talking about outside the solar system.
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Erm no. It was said several decades if not centuries for light to reach us. You then mentioned 4.2 yrs for prox centuri for the nearest star.

You can argue all you like Dick, but you were wrong.
 
Lynton said:
Erm no. It was said several decades if not centuries for light to reach us. You then mentioned 4.2 yrs for prox centuri for the nearest star.

You can argue all you like Dick, but you were wrong.
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Not arguing at all Linton. And you wanna get the stutter looked at. Looking at the thread it seemed obvious to Arclight and me. And did you really think we'd never noticed that big yellow ball in the sky. :cuckoo:
Someone's woken up in bad mood today.
 
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Ian D J said:
"There's life out there, Jim, but not as we know it".

I, too, believe there is life somewhere out there. I also think it would be quite naive of us to think that we are the only . . . er . . . "intelligent" (for want of a better word - watch an episode of "You've Been Framed" and you get the idea) life there is in this universe.
However, owning to the nature of physics and the way light and time interacts with each other, it would be impossible to establish contact with any kind of alien life form that may be sitting out there. For a start, it takes light from the nearest star several decades, if not, centuries, to reach here.
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Proxima Centauri, our nearest star is only 4.2 light years away. The next one is Sirius, roughly 9 light years away, I believe. So not too far fetched to believe some kind of contact is possible.
 
Ricardodaforce said:
Not arguing at all Linton. And you wanna get the stutter looked at. Looking at the thread it seemed obvious to Arclight and me. And did you really think we'd never noticed that big yellow ball in the sky. :cuckoo:
Someone's woken up in bad mood today.
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I think that's just Lynton being normal. Ahouldve read the thread though, I see I replied a bit late...
 
In theory it would be possible to travel very close to the speed of light and for those on board the space ship time would slow down so much that they could travel vast distances in a single lifetime.

Perhaps there are civilisations out there that learned to do this millions of years ago and are already colonising many habitable planets.

Maybe Earth is already on their hit list .
 
Just finished reading Arthur C. Clarke's 'Rama' books, which deal with this topic.

I'd love to think that there is other forms of intelligent life out there and that at some point humans will have to chance to interacts with them on a personal basis, but I fear that it will be in a lifetime very distant to my own life and that of my children....
 
Ricardodaforce said:
Not arguing at all Linton.
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It's Lynton, not Linton. :thumbs:

trencheel303 said:
I think that's just Lynton being normal.
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??? Care to elaborate.

The nearest star to Earth is the sun. Fact. The next nearest one is Prox. Centuri at roughly 4.2 Light years.

Back to the original post. Statistically, it must be pretty certain that there is some kind of life out there somewhere. Estimated 200-400 Billion stars in the milky way - so lets go for 300 Billion. Supposing 0.1% of those stars had planets orbiting them. That's 300 Million stars with planets. Suppose 0.001% had conditions to support life (whatever those conditions may be) That's 30,000 and that's just our galaxy.

Multiply that up by the number of galaxies .....

The question is though if there is life out there, is it still at amoeba in the primordial ooze or is it so advanced we wouldn't understand it.
 
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Lynton said:
It's Lynton, not Linton. :thumbs:



??? Care to elaborate.

The nearest star to Earth is the sun. Fact. The next nearest one is Prox. Centuri at roughly 4.2 Light years.

Back to the original post. Statistically, it must be pretty certain that there is some kind of life out there somewhere. Estimated 200-400 Billion stars in the milky way - so lets go for 300 Billion. Supposing 0.1% of those stars had planets orbiting them. That's 300 Million stars with planets. Suppose 0.001% had conditions to support life (whatever those conditions may be) That's 30,000 and that's just our galaxy.

Multiply that up by the number of galaxies .....

The question is though if there is life out there, is it still at amoeba in the primordial ooze or is it so advanced we wouldn't understand it.
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Or is it so advanced, it has destroyed itself, much like what mankind possibly will do.
 
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Lynton said:
It's Lynton, not Linton. :thumbs:



..... Statistically, it must be pretty certain that there is some kind of life out there somewhere. Estimated 200-400 Billion stars in the milky way - so lets go for 300 Billion. Supposing 0.1% of those stars had planets orbiting them. That's 300 Million stars with planets. Suppose 0.001% had conditions to support life (whatever those conditions may be) That's 30,000 and that's just our galaxy.

Multiply that up by the number of galaxies .....
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The Drake equation......
 
Lynton said:
It's Lynton, not Linton
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I know. But if you're gonna be immature enough to call me Dick, I'll continue to play with your effeminate moniker.
 
Lynton said:
Erm no. It was said several decades if not centuries for light to reach us. You then mentioned 4.2 yrs for prox centuri for the nearest star.

You can argue all you like Dick, but you were wrong.
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Ricardodaforce said:
I know. But if you're gonna be immature enough to call me Dick, I'll continue to play with your effeminate moniker.
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:beer:

For whet it's worth I believe there is life out there - we may not understand it, nor believe things are possible at human current knowledge stage.....including light speed travel, or beyond. Or are we as a race smug or naive enough to believe we know it all?
 
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They've already been here. Has anyone else watched the ancient aliens series on discovery?
Some very strange things in the planets history :suspect:

There's just got to be some life somewhere out there
We'll find out soon enough when our polution of the solar system with old satelites and rockets ****es off the neighbours and they come to chap our door iratley :lol:
 
BruceMo said:
They've already been here. Has anyone else watched the ancient aliens series on discovery?
Some very strange things in the planets history :suspect:
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Not seen it but sounds like they're dredging up some of the old Erich Von Daniken arguments.
 
Funny, he was the first fella that got me believing many moons ago with chariots of the gods
Ancient aliens doesn't half raise some questions from around the globe
A lot of it's questions come from an engineering/architecural/ archeologogy based analysis, I liked it
 
BruceMo said:
Funny, he was the first fella that got me believing many moons ago with chariots of the gods
Ancient aliens doesn't half raise some questions from around the globe
A lot of it's questions come from an engineering/architecural/ archeologogy based analysis, I liked it
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I'll look out for it. Sounds like you'd like Prometheus too, seeing as it deals with similar themes.
 
Ian D J said:
For a start, it takes light from the nearest star several decades, if not, centuries, to reach here.
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I think maybe you forgot our friendly neighbourhood star ... locally known as the Sun?

Light takes approximately 8m 19s to get to us from there :D
 
cyclamens said:
For whet it's worth I believe there is life out there - we may not understand it, nor believe things are possible at human current knowledge stage.....including light speed travel, or beyond. Or are we as a race smug or naive enough to believe we know it all?
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I heard technology wise it would be a bit like Sir Isaac Newton finding a school calculator ...no matter how much he studied it, he'd still have no clue to how it worked...
A smart mobile phone just a few decades later, so waaaay out of his league would it I wonder be impossible for him to understand even if explained.
 
Forbiddenbiker said:
A smart mobile phone just a few decades later, so waaaay out of his league would it I wonder be impossible for him to understand even if explained.
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Got one of those - I don't have a clue how to work it..........is that the same?:lol:
 
Bristolian said:
I think maybe you forgot our friendly neighbourhood star ... locally known as the Sun?

Light takes approximately 8m 19s to get to us from there :D
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Don't even go there... I tried that one!!!
 
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